


Each Time We Die, We Learn to Live Again

by Indiana_J



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-20
Updated: 2012-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-14 16:14:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/517191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Indiana_J/pseuds/Indiana_J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Behind the scenes of the first and second movies, Tia Dalma moves her chess pieces around the board.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Each Time We Die, We Learn to Live Again

_"Would ye give me yer love?" he had asked her so many years ago.  
  
When she laughed, he felt the ocean against his cheek.  "Only if ya give me somethin' in return…"  
  
"Anything," he swore.  
  
"Be careful what ya promise de sea," she breathed and rolled on top of him._  
  
~~  
  
It was said that no one could find the Isla de Muerta except for those that already knew where it was.  And while Tia Dalma had never set foot on that godforsaken isle, Calypso still remembered where it had hidden itself.  All she had to do was look for death amongst her rolled bones and it led her straight and true.  
  
The men she had brought with her stayed huddled together on the rowboats, unwilling to risk the island's wrath by trespassing on its shores.  They came with her at her command because, in turn, they had been unwilling to risk her anger.  They feared her only as Tia Dalma and she was content with that.  
  
For now.  
  
She crouched in the shallows of the ocean and lifted to her mouth a handful of the water lapping around her ankles.  The men whispered to themselves fearfully as she drank deeply of its secrets.  Calypso blinked with surprise and then smiled, satisfied, as she stood.  She left the frightened men behind on the beach and followed the island in with sure steps.  
  
Eventually, she found the entrance on the other side of the island hidden by rocks and sand dunes.  It was easy enough for her navigate her way down there, skirts held high and feet bare.  The sand felt good and she took a moment to relish it between her toes - after all, Calypso thought, there was time yet.  
  
There was water where she'd hidden herself away for all those years but it wasn't the same.  The water was brackish and thick; there was mud and grime instead of gentle sand; the breeze carried with it the faint scent of decay and rot.  It was enough of a compromise in that she could call it home but not enough to be a balm on her trapped soul.  
  
Calypso squared her shoulders and lifted her head defiantly.  They had bound her in the bones of Tia Dalma, they had stripped away her powers to almost nothing and, worse of all, they had taken her sea away from her.  And they would soon pay the price.  The pirate lords that had stolen her from her bed were long since dead but she would be content to take her revenge out on their decedents.  
  
They were all cut from the same cloth, the same blood ran in their veins.  It would have to be enough.  
  
She let herself have this moment of peace before she went in, taking care to walk in the river that led her to the key to her revenge.  Calypso ignored the piles of treasure - they had no meaning to her.  If she wanted something these days, she would barter for them or they were given to her in form of worship.  And, besides, the greatest treasure to her was not in the form of coins, rubies or pearls.  
  
It was currently laying in the pool of moon and blood, a sword not far from the still hand and a look of peace on his face.  
  
But it wasn't the face of Captain Hector Barbossa that had captured Calypso's attention.  She was staring hard at the faint specter above him as it shimmered in and out of the moonlight.  He hadn't been dead for all that long and she knew that the creature was feeding on the remains of a long, hard life.  But if it continued, there would be nothing left for her to work with.  
  
Calypso bared her teeth and hissed at the specter crouching above Barbossa's still body and it fled, unwilling to face her despite the hunger that drove it. She nodded, satisfied. Trapped as she was in the prison of flesh and bone there were still things that rightly fear the anger of the deep.  
  
Alone with the dead, she paced around his body and took his measure.  "Da great Captain Barbossa," she finally said. "One of da mighty pirate lords. Shall I bind ya in ya bones, my dear captain, would ya like that?  No?" She knelt near his face and smiled. "I have use for ya yet, I think, though ya will believe ya have use for me." Calypso patted the cold cheek almost gently before calling for her men.  
  
There was work yet to be done at home now.  
  
~~  
  
 _And when she sensed death at Jack Sparrow's shoulder, Calypso smiled a skeleton's smile and welcomed him into her home._  
  
~~  
  
Calypso waited a full day and night after Sparrow and his crew had left before starting preparations.  Sparrow had the luck of the devil at times and the last thing she needed was him interrupting her at a crucial moment.  
  
Only when she was sure that they had left on their quest for Davy Jones did she begin.  
  
She gazed with some amusement at the undead monkey scampering about her home.  Despite the crew's misgivings, it had settled right down - next to its fallen master.  She idly stroked its head as she gave thought to what she would need.  "Such a loyal one ya are," she told Jack, who now perched on the dead captain's boots.  "Unlike ya namesake."  
  
An age-old remedy had kept the body from rotting on the voyage home but time was running out.  Calypso found it to be ironic.  Time came for them all and it came with a special vengeance for those that had cheated it before.  
  
Like Captain Barbossa.  
  
"Time demands it's bit o' flesh," Calypso told him, uncaring that he couldn't respond.  Jack chattered back at her from his perch.  "Even I can't deny its appetite for ya for very long.  Luckily, I have just de thing for it."  
  
Calypso's smile grew as a group of men suddenly entered, dragging a struggling form behind them.  They threw the bound man on the floor at her feet and left as quickly as they came, unwilling to see it to the end.  She gazed down on him without pity.  "Ya would have been killed anyway," she told him, an unnatural frost in her voice.  "Ya raped, ya murdered and ya took from da natural order of things.  Be grateful ya life can be useful in da end."  
  
Piracy was all well and good until it came upon her shores, until it touched what was hers by right.  To the people around her, Tia Dalma was judge, jury and executioner and her word was law.  
  
The condemned man quieted down until he was just a quivering mass of fear on her floor.  
  
Content with the knowledge that he wouldn't do anything stupid, Calypso ignored him and turned back to the task at hand.  
  
"Come, Jack," she called and he lept from Barbossa's boots to her arm and up, until he sat on her shoulder.  "Let us see what we can do for ya master."  Her gaze narrowed sharply.  "Der be a tempest on da horizon not of my makin', Jack, and ya best believe we'll be puttin' a stop ta that."  
  
All the players were in place and while she waited for them to play their roles, Calypso started in on Captain Barbossa.  
  
~~  
  
 _And in the darkness, Death cried out "Thief, thief!" as the goddess laughed._  
  
~~  
  
Over the course of centuries, Calypso had raised a number of the dead - some merely as enslaved servants for a time but others she brought back fully unto themselves.  Like the pirate lord before her.  As each person had been different in life, so to were their reactions upon being brought back from beyond.  
  
Some had risen screaming, driven mad by the transition back to the living - those she had been forced to kill again before they could hurt themselves or those surrounding them.  Others had cried out in gratitude, eventually able to return to their lives that death had so rudely interrupted.  After, of course, her price had been met.  And a rare few had, upon realizing what had happened, committed suicide, preferring that potential hell to the one they had left on the mortal plane.  
  
To Calypso's delight, Captain Barbossa did none of these.  
  
She watched him slowly return to himself, bit by tattered bit, as she regained her own strength.  The problem with a cage of flesh was that it tired so quickly and the strain of returning a soul to the body, whole and untethered, was a great one.  
  
Calypso watched with sharp eyes as Barbossa drew in his first breath and wondered how many of those had he been able to draw before being sent to his maker.  Not many, apparently, from the strange, wondering look that crossed his face moments after.  
  
After a while, his breathing evened out though he didn't open his eyes.  Calypso smiled, not fooled in the least.  "Ya best be seein' what's in store for ya, Captain," she called out, forcing herself to stand.  She knew that if he saw a hint of weakness, he'd try and turn the tables on her.  And that she couldn't allow, not so early in the game yet.  
  
Cautiously, he did as she suggested as she made her to the bed he rested on.  While he slowly started to move his limbs, Calypso picked up his hat from where it had fallen during the ceremony.  She stopped, hat in hand, at the foot of her bed and watched as Barbossa's eyes were drawn to her.  
  
And perhaps it was due to the fact that Barbossa still yet straddled both worlds - and would for two days and a night, Calypso knew, and in that time she would have to fend off any agents that death sent - that allowed him to see her clearly.  
  
She saw herself reflected in his eyes and smiled a shark's smile, heard the raging tide flood through her veins, breathed out the scent of salt, and shook the algae from her hair.  
  
"Calypso," he breathed and she bowed deeply as she handed over his hat.  
  
"Captain Barbossa."  
  
"What trickery is this?" he asked cautiously, struggling to regain the strength that had been sapped out of his body.  
  
"No trickery," Calypso said and it was almost not a lie.  "Ya have been returned ta ya body, healed of ya deadly wounds and ya strength will return soon enough."  
  
Not yet alive for five minutes and Barbossa was already thinking, planning.  "And what will I owe ye for this ... favor?" he asked, clumsily reaching up to pet Jack as the monkey huddled closer.  
  
"Freedom."  
  
He froze, eyes narrowed.  "Yers or mine?"  
  
She just smiled and though he hid it well, she could see him flinch.  "Rest," she ordered abruptly, settling back down into the role of Tia Dalma.  "Rest and den we shall talk.  Much has happened in da mortal realm while ya were away and much will affect ya."  
  
"Such as?"  
  
"Davy Jones' heart and the beginning of the end," Calypso said as she turned away.  
  
~~  
  
 _Once upon a time there was a heart so broken that its master cut it out of his own body to rid himself of the pain.  And this heart he took and placed in a box that could weather any storm and survive any blow dealt.  He locked this box with a key that gleamed silver and true even under the cold, uncaring ocean and he tucked it away on himself.  This locked box he did take and buried deep in uncharted territories, convinced that no man would be able to locate it.  
  
Once upon a time, there was a man who had everything.  A life filled with a promising career, the friendship of a woman he loved – and one he hoped would love him in return – and, truly, he was a good, kind man.  And then he lost everything.  His honor, his career, his love.  And he despaired.  Until the despairing man came upon this heart, in the locked chest, on an island no man should have been able to find.  And he made a decision.  
  
And in doing so, he damned them all._  
  
~~  
  
Calypso found the Captain seated on the sinking porch attached to her home, gazing out into the wilds of the swamp around them.  He stayed seated, she stayed standing.  
  
"De tides be changin' quick," she said without preamble.  
  
"I suppose ye don't mean normal like," Barbossa said more mildly than she would have once thought.  But underneath the mild tone was the heart of a true pirate and she knew, even as he was still recovering his strength in her home, he was planning on how to use this situation to his advantage.  
  
"De heart dat belongs ta Davy Jones has been found."  
  
"Turner?  Or be it Sparrow?"  
  
She smiled an unearthly smile.  "Dey had a hand in it for sure but a fallen man has laid his claim on it."  
  
"And what, pray tell, has this fallen man done with this heart?"  Barbossa demanded, straightening in his seat.  
  
Calypso looked at him slyly.  "It now rests in de hands of Cutler Beckett, who shall turn de _Flying Dutchman_ and its Captain against anyone that stands in his way.  Perhaps even against de ocean herself."  
  
He scowled deeply and, with some effort, gained his feet.  "With the _Dutchman_ at his bloody beck and call, no one's goin' ta stand a chance."  Barbossa stopped and turned slowly to face her.  "Ye knew this would happen."  
  
She shrugged one shoulder and gazed fondly on the swamp in front of her.  "I had a feelin'."  
  
"I've been wonderin' exactly what it was ye brought me back from my eternal rest and I would bet me ship that this is why."  
  
At that, she suddenly laughed.  "Would ya like ta hear about ya ship and its captains fate?" she asked almost gleefully, enjoying the look that crossed his face at her cruel tone.  
  
"What has that bloody Sparrow done to me ship?" he bellowed and she overlooked his wobble as he moved forward.  
  
"They be far, far away from here," Calypso murmured, head falling back and eyes closing as she concentrated.  "Beyond my reach, they be, in Davey Jones' locker they rest for all eternity."  
  
He made a strangled noise; her head snapped up fast enough that he took a step back and she fixed him with a piercing glare.  
  
"Ta set things ta right, ta return de oceans back ta demselves, there be three things that need doin'.  One, ya must brave de haunted shores of Davey Jones locker and return both Jack and ya _Black Pearl_ to dis earth."  
  
"...I can see the benefits of me ship but not really of that wiley bastard," he started but she held up a hand to stop him.  
  
"Ya will have ta deal with Jones himself and ya will need all the help ya can get."  And now her smile grew and the ocean pressed against it's constraints.  "And de third thing?  Ya must free me from the prison ya precious Brethren Court put me in."  
  
Already, Barbossa was thinking it through - what would need to be done, what he could get out of it and what he could use against her. "It would take the entire court, includin' Jack Sparrow," he warned, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.  "And that ain't been done in, well, longer than I care ta remember."  
  
"They be singin' soon, Barbossa," Calypso crooned, "as Beckett hunts down de pirates one by one.  De dead will swing as the condemned thus sing and all de pirate lords will come a-runnin'."  
  
His face hardened at that.  "Aye, talk is all well and good," he mused, thinking it through, "though they'll never go for it."  
  
She snorted.  "As if ya would ever truly listen ta de words of de court when it didn't suite ya own purpose," she scoffed.  
  
And Barbossa began to smile.  
  
And plan.  
  
~~  
  
 _"What would ya do, what would any of ya do?  Would ya brave ta weird and haunted shores at world's end ta fetch back witty Jack and him precious Pearl?"_  
  
And the sea sang in sharp relief as the players played their parts.


End file.
